The present invention relates to a heat sink that cools heat-producing components, e.g. semiconductor devices, incorporated in electronic equipment.
Conventionally, semiconductor devices such as ICs and LSIs incorporated within electronic equipment such as notebook-size computers or portable communications equipment are mounted on a heat sink to cool them and to derive their full performances therefrom.
Some heat sinks have a heat dissipation fin section that radiates the heat generated within heat-producing components, e.g. semiconductor elements. Moreover, heat sinks carrying a heat pipe that transfers the heat toward heat fins are well known.
Recent trends in high-performance and downsizing of electronic equipment have boost the power consumption of semiconductor devices. The high packaging density causes a large amount of heat dissipation per area.
One approach to overcome the increased heat dissipation may be to use large heat dissipation fin sections for a heat sink but leads to a large-sized heat sink. However, there is the problem in that such a large heat sink cannot be adapted to slimmed electronic equipment such as notebook-size computers.
For that reason, it has been difficult to provide a heat sink that efficiently radiates the heat generated within a heat-producing component in downsized, thinned electronic equipment.
The present invention is made to solve the above-mentioned problems.
Moreover, the objective of the invention is to provide a heat sink that can efficiently dissipate the heat generated within heat-producing components such as semiconductor devices, thus miniaturizing and thinning electronic equipment and realizing high-performance electronic equipment.
The objective of the present invention is achieved by a heat sink, on which heat-producing components such as semiconductor devices are mounted, to cool the heat-producing components, comprising a plate section on which the heat-producing components are mounted; a heat dissipation fin section attached on the plate section; and a heat pipe arranged from an area of the plate section, on which the heat-producing components are mounted, to the heat dissipation fin section; the plate section having a front area larger than that of the heat dissipation fin section.
As described above, the plate section, on which heat-producing components such as semiconductor devices are mounted, has a larger front area than the heat dissipation fin section. Hence, the heat pipe can conduct the heat generated within heat-producing components toward not only the heat dissipation fin sections but also the whole of the plate section. This feature can easily deal with heat-producing components of which the heat dissipation is increased with the increased high performance of electronic equipment.
The enlarged plate section can aim at miniaturizing and thinning the heat dissipation fin section. Thus, it can be dealt with small-sized, particularly, thinned, high-performance electronic equipment.
According to the present invention, the heat sink further comprises an elevated section on which the heat-producing components are mountable, the elevated section being formed on the heat-producing component mounting area of a surface of the plate section.
Since the elevated section is formed on the area (or at the position) where heating elements are mounted, the heat-producing component mounting area is protruded from the surface of the plate section. This feature can eliminate the interference between the plate section and other components assembled on a heat-producing component mounted printed board.
According to the present invention, the heat sink further comprises a plurality of heat pipes that run over the heat-producing component mounting area of the plate section.
In the above structure, a plurality of heat pipes can very quickly conduct the heat generated from heat-producing components to the heat dissipation fin section and to the entire plate section.
Moreover, in the heat sink according to the present invention, the heat dissipation fin section comprises a plurality of fins formed on the front surface or the back surface of the plate section.
That is, the heat dissipation fin section, which is formed of plural fins formed on the front and back surfaces of the plate section, can improve its heat dissipation efficiency.
Furthermore, according to the present invention, the heat sink further comprises a cooling fan coupled to the heat dissipation fin section by means of a duct.
As described above, the cooling fan is coupled to the heat dissipation fin section by means of a duct. When the cooling fan is operated, the duct can efficiently introduce the air into the fins forming the heat dissipation fin section. Thus, this structure largely can increase the heat dissipation efficiency of the heat dissipation fin section, thus more efficiently cooling the heat-producing components.